Posts Tagged ‘The Leader of the Opposition’

As the time gets closer to the vote to get rid of the long-gun registry, the Liberal Party tries its best to confuse the issue in an apparently desperate attempt to convince people – and probably some of their own MPs – that the registry is no different than all of the other little licensing and registries that are imposed upon us.

The latest is a release which is “From the Leader of the Opposition” and titled Just the Facts: Things you have to register.

In part it reads:

Just consider how silly some of the Conservative and NDP arguments against registering firearms sound when you replace firearms with commons sense items that Canadians are used to registering:

Criminals won’t register their dogs anyway, so what’s the point?

The government wants you to get a fishing license so they can seize all of your fishing poles!

The car registration scheme in this country costs millions a year and does nothing to prevent road accidents!

You already have to pass a driver’s test to be able to drive a car, so what’s the point of having to register your car?

There was a boating accident last week, and the boating registration scheme did nothing to prevent that from happening!

To help you keep track, here’s a list of things you have to register, if you want to own, do, or receive the following:

Now I don’t know the intelligence quotient of the person or persons who wrote this tripe, but whatever they were paid to write this up for The Leader of the Opposition (AKA The Honourable Michael Ignatieff) was akin to robbery. But then again the Liberals, in all seriousness, sent it out as an official release. Read into that what you may.

To begin with, the clever Liberals forgot to mention that none of the above examples come with a criminal record if you don’t comply and many of their examples are not compulsory either.

But for a start.

Criminals won’t register their dogs anyway, so what’s the point?

Exactly. As well, probably the vast number of dog owners never bother to register or to use a better term, licence their dogs anyway.

The government wants you to get a fishing license so they can seize all of your fishing poles!

This is a really stupid one. Fishing and hunting license fees are set to generate funds for the ongoing operations of the various provincial governments’ Fish & Wildlife branches. Although a lot of that revenue may be sucked off into the black hole of general revenue. If you don’t hunt or fish you don’t pay the licence fees. And as far as fishing goes, they haven’t started a fishing pole registry yet.

The car registration scheme in this country costs millions a year and does nothing to prevent road accidents!

No it certainly doesn’t. Car registration started in most places as far back as 1904 when governments saw that there were going to be a lot of them using roads that would have to be built and considerable cost. So the registration of cars was a tax initiative and has grown, as most bureaucracies do, to what it is today.

We all pay our water bills but it doesn’t stop bathtub fatalities. About the same level of stupidity as the car registration argument.

You already have to pass a driver’s test to be able to drive a car, so what’s the point of having to register your car?

Whoa. You stepped right into that one Mr. Ignatieff.

I already have to pass a test and obtain a licence to buy a firearm, so what’s the point of having to register my guns? Good question! We’ve been saying that all along. Let me know when you come up with an answer.

There was a boating accident last week, and the boating registration scheme did nothing to prevent that from happening!

You’re absolutely right again. What is the point of the boating registration ‘scheme’. Taxation? I think that’s probably the first thing that comes to mind. The old government axiom: If they own it. Tax it.

The rest of the list? Registering as an accountant, lawyer etc.? Those are professional associations that have obtained the rights and authority from government to control and self-police their members and keep their membership exclusive. You might have a law degree and be a brilliant lawyer, but if you aren’t a member of the Law Society you won’t be practicing law.You don’t have to join. Only if you want to work.

Why go on. The rest of the examples are just as nonsensical.

The only frightening thing is that someone might read this garbage and actually think, “Duh, them Liberals have got a point there”.